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HBO Rating Bumpers
Rating bumpers from 1972 - 1975? Bumper: TBA FX/SFX: None Music/Sounds: TBA Availability: Extinct, so check old tape recordings for this. Scare Factor: TBA Rating bumpers from 1975? - 1978 Bumper: On a black background, we see a red and blue arc with the rating (in 3-D and in blue with white outlines) inside of it. FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: A narrarator saying the movie's rating. For R-rated features, an explanation of the rating was used. Availability: Same as the previous bumper. Scare factor: None. Rating bumpers from 1978 - 1982 Bumper: We see a black screen, with the MPAA rating logo and a scroll beneath showing an explanation of the content found in a movie (for PG and up) FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: Same as 1975 - 1978 bumper, except now PG and up get explanations too. Availability: Same as the previous bumpers. Scare factor: None to low. The black background and voiceover can get to some. Rating bumpers from 1982 - 1984 Bumper: We see a black-blue gradient background, with, like the 1978 - 1982 bumpers, the MPAA rating logo in reddish-orange on the top left corner, but this time there is no scroll. FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: Same type of narration (but this time it could vary: sometimes it was a woman and sometimes it was a man narrarating), but a little more descriptive. Availability: Check for video tapes from the era. Scare factor: None. Rating bumpers from 1984/5 - 1987 Bumper: We see a nicer screen, this time with an HBO in the wallpaper, but like the 1983 to 1984/5 bumpers, the rating on the upper right corner. FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: Same as 1983 - 1984/5 bumper, minus the man that was in the 1983 bumpers. Available: see above. Scare factor: None. Rating bumpers from 1987 - 1989 Bumper: We see another nice screen, but in purple, and HBO bumpers are all over the wallpaper, and the rating up on the upper right corner. FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: Same as 1984/5-1987 bumper. This was also the last bumper to provide an explanation of the R rating. Available: Same as the previous bumpers. Scare factor: None. Rating bumpers from 1989 - March 1994 Bumper: Over a purple marble background, we see the movie's rating, and next to it is a white marble section with a disclaimer, "Closed Captioning" and "In Stereo Where Available" icons, and the HBO logo. FX/SFX: None. Cheesy Factor: The bumper is rather ugly. Music/Sounds: This was the the first bumper to keep it simple. For movies (because this was before the TV ratings), it was just a simple, "The following movie is rated rating." Though sometimes if it was unrated programming, it would be a warning about the programs intensity or frankness. NC-17 movies had the bumper as well, as an HBO airing of "Dice Rules" in 1992 showed us. Availability: This one lasted a few years, so check for tapes from 1989 to 1994. Very long time. Entertaining bumper. Scare factor: None, but seeing as this is the last bumper with Richard St. James providing the voiceover, it gets creepier with the following bumpers. Prototype bumpers for the 1994 - 1995 season -- March to circa summer 1994 Bumper: Same as the previous bumper, but enhanced and, as a result of President Bill Clinton's 1993 lesiglation the against ever-increasing levels of explicit content on television, there's now a second screen depicting what the program contains. FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: Same as 1989 - 1994 bumper, only this time it's done right as the bumper fades into the thing. In the previous one, sometimes there was a 3 second pause before we hear the narrator. This time no narration for any TV shows. Instead we get the same bumper for programming. Before TV shows or special it just showed us what kinda sound and if Spanish translations were available (TV ratings were not in existence yet), and then the bumper with what the programmed contains. For instance "Def Jam Comedy" didn't have a rating (being it's second season was in 1994), but being it contained "AC -- Adult Content" and "GL -- Graphic Language" -- you can bet it was R-rated material, hence it would be TV-MA in today's standards. Availability: Extremely rare, check for tapes around March 1994 to the summer. This bumper only last a few months. A similar bumper was done on HBO's sister channel Cinemax (only with a different, more pleasant sounding narrarator). Scare factor: Low to medium (for the narraration) -- in this bumper, and the next one to come up, he's not all that creepy, but for those who have memories of the 1997 - 2006 bumpers, this may be a little unsettling to say the least; (medium for the bumper). The "R" could have spooked kids out, but for many this is really more startling than creepy, like the Warning screens for Universal. The guy who narrarates now, will become creepy in 2000. And has caused many nightmares, but hear he's rather warmer in comparison to what he becomes later. Many of the categories that were used in this brief bumper were discontinued by the summer of 1994. "Adult humor" was never used but for those 3 months. Bumpers from summer 1994 - 1997 Bumper: W FX/SFX: None. Music/Sounds: Same as the previous bumper. In 1996, President Clinton enacted the V-chip act, so in that year or in 1997 we started seeing TV rating bumpers for TV shows and making-of specials, with the same "Program contains" bumper afterwards, but no narration on those bumpers. Availability: Check for tapes from the 1994 - 1997 era. Scare factor: same as above. I remember this one, and I will say this one does startle me a bit more, but that's because I remember this. Haha :) Bumpers from 1997 - 1999 Bumper: Over a water-like background, the bumper design is the same as before, only this time the text is white, the rating and symbols are in a near-rectangle, the rating is bigger and bolder, and the rating is also within a dark red rectangle. FX/SFX: The water moving. Music/Sounds: same as 1994 - 1997 bumpers. Availability: rare. Check for videos from fall 1997 to about fall 1999. Scare factor: very high to extreme. The font was creepy, and especially in R movies it was ugly. Low to medium for the guy's voice -- it was more startling rather than creepy. I don't remember being creeped out by his voice. Bumpers from 1999 - 2002 Bumpers: we see a valve background, much neater than the 1997 bumper. It's like we're in a factory. A little different from the programming bumpers (like "Next" and "Tonight"). FX/SFX: We see valves opening. One of HBO's finest bumpers. If you can look past that giant "R". hahah Music/Sounds: same as 1994 - 1997 bumpers. Availability: Check for tapes from 1999 - 2002. Scare factor: very high. A little less being the logo doesn't take up the screen nearly as much, and it's not as bright. But it's still unpleasant to look at. Very high to extreme for the narrarator. Now he just becomes creepy. Not to indict the guy, as I don't know him, but he sounds like the Devil. Bumpers from 2002 - 2006 Bumpers: we see an atmosphere, with mystic-looking what appears to be clouds, changing screens every 2 seconds (the background that is). FX/SFX: We see the atmosphere moving, and changing every 2 seconds, a little slightly different from the programming bumpers. Very neat. Music/Sounds: same as 1999 - 2002 bumpers (none on the outer networks is not an outer network; it's the same as HBO). The bumpers are slightly different in backgrounds, but the same atmospheric type. Availability: was common in that time. Lasted 4 years, til as late as possibly August or September 2006. Scare factor: very high to extreme for both. But at least you can avoid it by looking at the bottom of the screen, cause it's not big and doesn't take up the screen. Not the same font used for the bumpers before. It's very creepy. Same for narraration. None in terms of sound for the outer network variants, since the narrarator was never on HBO Comedy or HBO2 for instance. Category:Rating Bumpers